Facts Still Can't Speak for Themselves: Reveal the Stories that Give Facts Their Meaning, Second Edition

Publisher: NITA

Eric Oliver offers trial attorneys proven ways to uncover the full range of those "rewritten" stories in focus groups, and how to take their best elements into court to deliver a story more likely to persuade than the one you thought you had.

Today, most trial lawyers and consultants accept the fact that all legal decision makers decide cases by first making up their own version of the case story. Yet, few have yet to fully adjust their practices to meet the demands of that reality. Facts Still Can't Speak for Themselves offers specific methods for trial professionals to increase their reach into the full range of potential stories decision makers can construct (and will construct) during any single case, and then shows you how to refine those stories into the one most compelling presentation for any legal decision maker to judge, in any legal decision-making venue. What you'll find inside:

• How the stories decision makers imagine affect verdicts as much as their backgrounds and beliefs or the attorney's presentation in court

• Which focus group method reveals the real range of stories decision makers can build from your case

• How to profitably apply focus group results in negotiations and mediation equally well as in trials

• How to run voir dire like a focus group (and a focus group like voir dire) improving both in the process—and how to avoid common misleading mistakes

• How focus group deliberations are the least valuable part of the process

• How asking focus group participants which side in a case they "like" could be a major mistake

• Why you should think twice before ever again asking a "why" question or using the word "any" during voir dire or in focus groups

• How to establish immediate rapport with decision makers and to manage how they build their perceptions of your
client's case story—in time to affect their final judgments

In this new edition, Eric Oliver dives deeply into cutting-edge research in communication, human judgment, perception, and influence and breaks down the process of turning theoretical abstractions into effective persuasive practices that help legal decision makers hear–and see–the case story from your client's point of view. Each chapter is now supplemented with some of the most relevant developments in the science of decision making, as well as with the decade of additional experience Eric has acquired working with trial lawyers and their clients since the first edition was published in 2005.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Mike Doyle

Foreword by David Ball

Preface 2015

Preface 2005

Acknowledgements

Chapter One: Making up Your Mind

1.1 Seeds of Judgment
1.2 Terrain of the Story Context
1.3 Story Elements
1.4 Process of Story Growth
1.5 Seeking out Stories
1.6 2015 Supplement

Eric Oliver

Eric Oliver is a national trial consultant specializing in verbal, non-verbal, implied, and visual communication with 30 years' experience working with-and training—trial attorneys. His "Whole Brain"™ model of persuasion for successfully influencing legal decision makers bridges the gap for attorneys between theory and practice. He has been integral to the successful resolution of thousands of cases including first-ever verdicts for plaintiffs and multiple state records for settlement and verdict amounts. Eric also offers unique approaches to focus group work and a method for attorney-conducted voir dire that renowned consultant David Ball says "no one else has ever thought of," aligning with the potential juror instead of challenging their character and fairness.

Eric is also the author of Persuasive Communication: 25 years of Teaching Lawyers (trialguides.com). He recently published The Persuasion Edge for Legal Communication DVD series (trialguides.com) in which he teaches how to successfully influence decision makers during negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and trial. You can find out more about his work through his firm, MetaSystems, LTD, at www.eric-oliver.com.